


the best mistake

by jdphoenix



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-22
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-02-05 08:22:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12790581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: If you say a lie often enough, eventually even you'll begin to believe it.





	the best mistake

**Author's Note:**

> This is most likely the start of something so even though it's on the short side, it gets its own posting. Additions will be random and sporadic, more drabbles than chapters, so don't get too excited.

With all the globe-hopping they do, the team doesn’t exactly keep set hours, so it’s not all that weird for Grant to find he’s not the only one up when he heads downstairs for his morning workout. What is weird is that he was the first to bed only five hours ago and yesterday’s mission wiped them all out. No way any of them should be up—hell, _Grant_ shouldn’t even be up.

“Hey,” he says, leaning against the lab’s open door while he wraps his hands. “What are you doing up so-” he glances down, through the open front of Simmons’ lab coat, and sees the same blouse she changed into yesterday before the debrief- “late?”

She lets out a heavy sigh and yeah, she’s definitely been up all night. Her skin’s pale and there are ugly rings under her eyes and she doesn’t so much sink as _drop_ onto the stool behind her like a fallen doll.

“What has Coulson said about sleep?” he asks, trying to hit just that right note between teasing and emotionally-stunted-loser. It doesn’t earn him the smile he hoped it would. If anything, her shoulders only slump more.

“I couldn’t,” she says. “Sleep, that is. I thought I might as well get some work done.”

He steps inside, coming close to take a better look at her. “Nightmares?” It’s barely been a week since Morocco cleared the two of them, he’ll be surprised if she has an easy night’s sleep within the month.

“No,” she says and immediately amends it by saying, “Yes. But that’s not why. I need to ask your opinion. As a man.”

He blinks, surprised by the qualifier. Simmons has a talent for surprising him—that jump she took sure did—so he takes a step back to brace a hip against the lab bench and folds his arms over his chest before saying, “Shoot.”

Whatever it is, it must be big. It takes her a few tries to get the words out and, even when she does, she can’t meet his eyes. “Is Fitz in love with me?”

Oh. Oh, hell.

He knows the answer—it’s pretty obvious to anyone with eyes that it’s a big fat YES—but he also knows they’re two months into this whole team thing and he just made the big sacrifice play; he does not need to start over with a new biochemist or engineer or, worse, _both_ just because these two have finally hit puberty ten years into their relationship.

“Well,” he says, just to buy himself a little time to think about this.

“Yes or no, Ward. It’s a simple question.”

He barks out a laugh. It’s not like Simmons to be so short (unless she’s caught him trying to hide some minor injury from her) and it is _far_ from a simple question.

Thing is, she knows. She’s gotta or she wouldn’t be asking for a second opinion. A second _male_ opinion, that’s what she wanted, right? Hell. He just hopes the next medic is as impressed with his abs as she is.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, he’s totally in love with you.”

For a second her expression freezes, caught between so many emotions he can’t hope to get a read on her, then she turns away muttering, “Oh, bloody hell.”

“Yeah,” he says again because that’s pretty much his opinion of it too.

“ _Why?_ ” She whirls in place. “What _possessed_ him? For ten years we’ve been best friends and do you think no one’s ever asked is if we weren’t more than that?”

“I-”

“Of _course_ they have! Everyone from our professors at the Academy to our parents to the bloody comms agent loading our supplies onto the Bus!” She drops onto the chair Skye uses when she’s working at the computer in here. The force of her impact sends it spinning lazily around. When she’s facing Grant’s direction again she says, “He’s going to ruin everything.”

A more socially adept man might say something supportive here, but Grant—the Grant SHIELD assigned to this plane—is not that guy, so he lets a few awkward seconds go by.

“Listen,” he says finally. “My relationship skills top out at shovel speeches, so unless you want me to make Fitz disappear, I’m thinking Skye would be more help so…” He finishes up with a thumb thrown over his shoulder and his hips angled towards the door. 

Simmons smiles. “No. I don’t think it’s quite that dire. But there is something you could do?”

“Anything,” he says, hoping she’s about to ask him to get Skye. He can have her caffeinated and down here in ten minutes.

“Would you be my boyfriend?”

For a full ten seconds his brain is utterly silent. No thoughts. Nothing. Just the sound of that question echoing around in his skull while he tries to figure out whether he’s hallucinating.

“Would I _what_?” he asks when he can’t think of anything else to say.

Simmons rolls her eyes. “Fitz needs to realize that I’m not interested in him. But if I simply _tell him_ , he’s likely to be hurt and defensive and you’ve seen how he can be. It would destroy the team. So the simplest solution is to let him _see_ that I’m not interested. Therefore, I need a boyfriend. A fake one, obviously, but Fitz won’t know that. He’ll only see that I’m dating a man who is nothing like him at all and that I’m hopelessly in love with him.”

“And you chose me for this?”

She shrugs. “I’d considered Skye, but I thought that might be rather counterproductive, especially given that Fitz seemed to have feelings for her up until recently.” She ends on a pathetic little sigh that has Grant struggling not to roll his own eyes. He kinda wishes she’d just asked him to cross Fitz off. It’d be so easy to make it look like an accident…

“All right,” he says, physically waving away the mental image she just put in his head (that’s not going away anytime soon), “you are officially loopy. And,” he adds while he digs through the cabinets, “if you ever tell Skye I used the word ‘loopy’ I’ll deny it to the grave.”

She giggles. “But I’m not wrong. This is the best solution.”

He nearly laughs. He’s seen Simmons’ deception scores; she couldn’t convince a toddler there’s a Santa Claus. He finds what he’s looking for, the sedatives she tries to push on him every time he gets anything worse than a paper cut. “You’ve had about two hours sleep in the last two days. So you’re gonna take these pills, get some sleep, and once you’re thinking clearly again you’ll realize how crazy you sound.”

He opens her palm and shakes two pills into it. She looks at them like they’re hemlock.

“You’re not going to help me.”

He ducks down so he’s on her level. “I _am_ helping you. You’ll see.”

She closes her eyes tight. “No. If Fitz is really in love with me, the only remaining solution will be to-” she gasps in a sharp breath- “to end things entirely. I’ll need to request a transfer. I suppose I could convince Coulson it’s due to the virus but I’d have to tell Fitz the truth. Best to do it immediately, don’t you think? Like a bandaid?”

She’s barely talking to him anymore, not even looking to him for answers to her questions.

He drops to his haunches, closes his hands around her fist to hold her in place. He is _not_ going to lose two months of work just because Simmons is having a breakdown. “Okay, okay. How about this? You agree to sleep on it and if you still think it’s a good idea, I’ll-” he cannot _believe_ he is saying this- “be your fake boyfriend.”

Her whole face lights up. “Really? You will?”

“Yeah,” he says grudgingly. “But you gotta get at _least_ eight hours sleep. _And_ eat a decent meal before you decide. Deal?”

She ignores his open hand and throws herself at him for a hug. He’d chalked it up to the virus last time how light she felt in his arms, but turns out that’s just how she’s built.

“Thank you!” she practically squeals and then she’s gone, racing out of the lab and up the stairs to sleep.

He watches her go while his gut slowly twists itself up. He has the feeling he just royally fucked up.

 

 


End file.
